Chapter 4

He stepped back in shock. His heart raced and his head was spinning. He needed a moment to compose his thoughts after he heard a name he had not heard in decades.

“Ame….”

He was cut off but rustling all around them as the other pack warriors joined them in the clearing. This startled Amelia, making her raise her gun again while she spun around watching all the wolves come out of the forest and into the clearing.

“Who’s this?” one male pack member asked.

“She smells like a wolf”, a female pack member said sniffing the air.

“Wolves don’t carry silver bullets”, another male pack member said.

“A hunter then…” growled another wolf.

She was distressed. It probably looked to her like the wolves had made up their mind that she was a threat and the panic was starting to show on her face. Fortunately for her, the wolves would never attack anyone unless they were ordered to by the Alpha.

“She’s a guest”, the Alpha said, making his warriors settle down.

When she turned around and faced him confused, he walked up to her and lowered the gun in her hand as he looked into her eyes with an almost sad and apologetic look on his face.

Here she was, standing before him like a ghost from a forgotten memory. Having lived a life that he was unaware of and returned as a full-grown adult who had no idea who he was.

“Congratulations, you found the Silver Lake pack”, he told her.

Seeing the look on her face, he wondered how many times he could shock her in one day with just his words.

“Seriously, Alpha, who is this?”, another wolf asked.

“This is Amelia”, he said without breaking eye contact with her, all he wanted to do was engrave them to his memory again.

The group went dead silent for a moment. They all seemed to know her name, and this sent her reeling again.

“She’s….” one of the wolves began saying as the Alpha cut him off.

“We’ll talk about it when we get back home. We should at least put on some clothes before we continue this conversation.”

“Huh? Clothes?”, Amelia said tilting her head to the side and then looking down.

She gasped and looked up at the tree canopy when she was confronted with the naked body of the Alpha.

“You’re naked!” she cried out before looking around at the other wolves. “You’re all naked!”

They all burst out laughing at their guest’s slow reaction. This seemed to ease the tension and relax the wolves as well as Amelia.

“Dude! We’ve been standing here naked for at least 15 minutes now!” one wolf exclaimed.

“What the hell kinda hunter are you?!” another wolf chimed in.

“Not a very good one, that’s for sure.”

“You do realize we’re wolves, right?” another asked.

“I’m sorry, I was preoccupied with not getting dead…” she said, this time covering her eyes with her hand.

The group laughed some more at Amelia’s expense while she tried and failed to hide her embarrassment.

All the Alpha wanted to do was pull her hand away so that he could gaze at her reddening face again. But this was not the time, it was time to take her back home.

“We’re heading back”, the Alpha commanded.

“Can she keep up?” a female wolf said studying Amelia’s injured side.

“I can keep up”, Amelia retorted, putting on her backpack and taking a step, only to lose strength in her right leg and almost crumple to the ground.

The Alpha caught her before she hit the ground and groaned under his breath. She was far too injured to run on her own to the pack settlement, even if she was too proud to admit it.

“I’ll carry her, go”, he said to his group who all shifted and ran into the forest.

The Alpha shifted into his massive wolf form in front of her making her step backwards. Thankfully, this time the look on her face was awe and confusion instead of terror.

Amelia was used to wolves chasing her to kill her, and not offering their backs to her for a ride. The Alpha lowered himself for Amelia to climb on his back. He could see that she wanted to protest, but he was glad to see that she wisely decided against it. When she was on his back, he looked back at her expectantly. It took her a moment to realize that he was telling her to hold on. So she grabbed a fist full of his fur in both hands, and he immediately took off towards the settlement.

***

Wolves were fast in this form, but the Alpha was on a whole other level.

She could barely see the trees flying past them as they ran through the forest. Amelia was so shocked at their speed that she grabbed onto his fur tighter and buried her head between his shoulders.

Then she smelt something that seemed to calm her nerves almost immediately. ‘Was the Alpha releasing calming pheromones?’ she thought to herself as she finally let herself look up from beneath his surprisingly soft fur. Her mother had told her of the different uses and effects of Alpha pheromones but she had never experienced it herself.

They had caught up with the rest of the group in no time and were now leading the group of wolves as they ran through the forest.

Although Amelia was holding onto the Alpha for her life, there was something exhilarating about running through the forest with a pack of wolves. It felt like something Amelia didn’t know she needed to experience.

With their speed, they easily crossed 50 miles in several minutes. Their pace started to slow down and Amelia managed to prop herself up on the Alpha’s back to see the woods starting to clear revealing a settlement beyond the trees.

The group stopped at the tree line and began shifting back into their human forms. Amelia got off the back of the Alpha, and he immediately faced her and sniffed a little before touching his nose to hers. She guessed that he was checking to see if she still smelled scared or anxious. Amelia tried not to read too much into his actions and turned around to scan her environment. Then she noticed that all the wolves had bags with clothing stuffed into, hanging off of or leaning on the trees.

As they got dressed, Amelia stepped out from behind the trees and saw a bustling community of people going about their business. It looked like any other town, but this was a werewolf settlement. Her brain could not wrap around the fact that these were all wolves. And that none of them wanted to kill her.

The Alpha walked up from behind her and stood next to her as she took in the scenery.

“This is the Silver Lake pack”, he said proudly.